South African a cappella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo has taken its message around the world for 50 years

Since 1964, Ladysmith Black Mambazo has brought its joyous, uplifting music from its native South Africa to the rest of the world.

The songs the a cappella group performs have changed over the decades, but the spirit and meaning behind them has not wavered.

"I don't think our message has changed at all over the last 50 years," Ladysmith's Albert Mazibuko says. "Our message and mission has been one of peace, love and harmony, of people working together for a better world. At first this message was just to the people of South Africa, during the terrible years of apartheid, but since we began traveling all over the world, thanks to Paul Simon and his 'Graceland' album, we've spread the message globally."

"Graceland" was released in 1986 and, after appearing with Simon, Ladysmith began regular international touring. The group now spends from five to six months outside South Africa each year, but it doesn't quit working when it gets back home.

"In South Africa we're probably away from home another month, but that's spread out over the remaining time at home," Mazibuko says in an email interview. (Editor's note: the accents of the group members can make their words difficult to discern in a spoken interview.)

"We spend a lot of time rehearsing, four days a week every week," he says. "It's our job and we must keep at it. But when I say 'job' I don't mean in a bad way. It is what we do to earn a living, but it's such a joy, a blessing and all."

Rigorous rehearsals are required to bring Ladysmith's songs to life.

Rooted in a style of singing developed in coal mines by workers struggling under the apartheid system, Ladysmith's music is written and arranged by the group's founder, Joseph Shabalala.

In 1964, Shabalala had a recurring dream about developing a group to sing isicathamiya ( a type of secular a cappella choral singing developed in South Africa by migrant Zulu communities) and make it better and different than anything else in the world by adding gospel to the mix.

Shabalala, an ordained minister, named the group Ladysmith, for his rural hometown, Black for the strongest farm animal, the ox, and Mambazo, the Zulu word for ax, symbolizing the group's ability to cut down its competition.

A few years later, Shabalala had to disband the original Ladysmith. But in 1969, he asked Mazibuko to join the reformed group, which struggled with police and government harassment designed to keep it from performing during the years of apartheid rule.

"I don't think our group alone played a part in ending apartheid," Mazibuko says. "However I do think the collective musical spirit from South Africa, led in part by the 'Graceland' album and tour with all the South Africans performing and playing in front of thousands of people, did play a part in it. But there were many, many thousands of people who played a part in ending apartheid. The collective people held prisoner under apartheid ended that terrible era."

Ladysmith was selected by Nelson Mandela to go to Norway to perform when he received the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, an indicator of the group's importance in South Africa and place in the anti-apartheid movement.

"To watch that special man, held prisoner all those years and how he came to represent our struggle, to watch him be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, was something I can never forget," Mazibuko says.

After being introduced to the West, Ladysmith began releasing its albums here, winning its first of three Grammy Awards in 1988.

Ladysmith's latest album, titled "Ladysmith Black Mambazo & Friends," is made up of collaborations with other artists, including "Homeless" and "Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes," the two songs the group did with Simon on "Graceland."

"It's been an honor for us to have worked with so many famous performers," Mazibuko says. "Paul Simon of course, Stevie Wonder, Dolly Parton, Josh Groban, Sarah McLachlan and so many others. The way each of these happened are their own stories so I couldn't explain them all. I think it's a spirit others feel with our singing. Sometimes they have a song that calls out for a sound like we make. People will reach out to us.

"Other times it's us who reaches out, and we've been very blessed by having so many special people say they were happy to sing with us. In fact, we are working on a new CD, a collection of American gospel songs, and we have some people in mind that we think would be wonderful on those songs. Maybe they'll say yes and we'll have a very special new recording."

While they market their music in the United States and Europe, Mazibuko says Ladysmith doesn't skew its music to appeal to a Western audience.

"Actually some people say we should change ourselves, be less traditional and more modern," he says. "But that isn't Ladysmith Black Mambazo. We like how we are and people seem to like it, too, so we're happy still doing what we do. Perhaps our jokes, from the stage, are skewed, but not the songs."